We know the fight-flight-freeze-response, but what is the fawn response?
Fight-Flight-Freeze-Fawn: Trauma Survival Responses
The fight-flight-freeze response is a fear system we've had throughout humanity to keep us safe from danger or threats. For example, many many years ago if there was a tiger chasing after you, the adrenal and threat response would kick in and you’d be able to run away faster (flight), or depending on the animal you may play dead (freeze). If you witnessed a trauma, you may have had to numb and detach yourself or felt like you were just watching yourself from afar (dissociation) to get through it. These are ways our sympathetic nervous system gets activated when sensing threats and danger, to keep us alive and safe. If it didn't exist, the trauma or stress may be too much to handle.
The challenge with trauma is that after the distressing event is over, you may still live in a chronic or frequent state of fight-flight-freeze, despite now actually being safe. Your body doesn't realize you're safe anymore and is always on alert for danger, your sympathetic often gets triggered from perceived threats, mostly triggered from the old trauma, putting you into this increased state of arousal all the time. You may feel like you’re always on high alert and anxious, fearing that something wrong is about to happen at any point. Or the opposite, you may feel numbed out and not feeling much often. These are both ways you are constantly in a state of fight-flight-freeze, though your body is just trying to protect you.
Now the fawn response, is when you find yourself trying to decrease and avoid the distress or danger, by appeasing and keeping the threat happy. This looks like people pleasing and saying yes instead of no, submitting to the other person, trying to keep others happy, over-explaining and over-apologizing, or putting them first while neglecting your own needs, desires, and feelings. This was another survival mechanism to keep you safe, can also be a symptom of C-PTSD where you had to adhere to someone's wants and needs to not receive a negative reaction or response or to keep things stable. You now abandon yourself to appease others and keep the peace to protect yourself, prevent conflict, or rejection.
Signs of the fawn response:
People pleasing and saying yes when you mean no
Doing anything to “keep the peace” to avoid conflict, making yourself small or invisible for it
Adhering to other peoples wants, needs, desires and feeling afraid to attend to yours or neglect theirs, out of fear of their reaction/response
Minimizing your needs, feelings, or pain and trouble expressing them because it feels dangerous or “too much”
Rushing to reassure or comfort someone who hurt you and dismissing your own hurt
Mirroring other peoples opinions, likes, or behaviors to be accepted
Difficulty with or lack of boundary setting - extreme anxiety or guilt when you try
Feeling shakey, numb, or frozen when you try to advocate for yourself so you end up not following through or trying
Constant apologizing of over-explaining yourself - particularly when someone else hurt you just to calm them down and avoid escalation
Taking blame for things that arent your fault to keep things from getting worse
Praising and complimenting other people, even if you don't mean it to keep yourself safe and them happy
Helping other people and feeling overly-responsible to their emotions
Intense shame, guilt, and fear when you can't meet someone else's expectations or requests
Pretending you are okay, smiling, or laughing when you are uncomfortable, scared, or in pain
Changing your personality to stay safe or be liked
Keeping a smile on your face or appearing happy at all times
Trying to predict other people's feelings, monitoring their moods and anticipate their needs (hypervigilance) in order to prevent conflict
Discomfort when you receive care or attention
If these sound familiar to you, it's because they are aligned with the signs of codependency and people pleasing (in my other blogs). That is because someone with codependency, is acting from a state of fawn usually. Both can be symptoms of complex ptsd and result in low self worth.
Fawning is a trauma response and you are people pleasing, however if you’re a people pleaser that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fawning.
Causes Of Fawning:
Whether from your attachment style and unmet needs by your caregiver, dynamics of unhealthy/abusive/neglectful relationships, dynamics of being related to or dating someone with narcissism, severe mental health issues, or addictions, parentification, or being close to someone with unpredictable and reactive behavior - these are survival strategies to keep you safe.
Childhood trauma or abuse - emotional volatility, abuse, or neglectful caregivers - you learned to keep yourself safe by appeasing/managing them
Emotional neglect - expressing your needs or feelings led to punishment, rejection, or being ignored/silent treatment
Living with someone unpredictable - having to constantly monitor their mood and behaviors ( like a caregiver with anger issues, addiction, mental health disorders, narcissism)
Attachment trauma - early attachment wounds (inconsistent or unsafe caregiving) may have taught you that being yourself isnt safe so you match the other person to keep the connection
Repeated experiences of threat or violence - emotional, verbal, or physical
Controlling relationships - if being yourself or disagreement turned into conflict, escalation, and being punished - fawning became a way to survive
That is me! Now what do I do?
Address it in therapy! Talk about it, name it, and start working on healing these responses. Awareness is always key so the insight that this is something you do is a huge step. Make sure you're working on it with someone trauma-informed.
Work on identifying what your needs, wants, values, and opinions are - you likely aren’t sure what is yours and whats from others
Start working on learning what boundaries are and how to set/maintain them effectively, with shifting your relationship to guilt
Practice saying no and having a plan immediately after so you can tolerate the distress
Practice regular self care, getting used to taking care of yourself and attending to your needs
Journal and practice mindfulness skills - breathwork, grounding, yoga, meditation, writing - outlets to keep you connected to yourself
Reach out to your support system, you do deserve to receive help and asking for it may feel hard but it's important and brave. Begin sharing when you are not okay and letting people support you
Self-compassion. It takes time to undo these patterns, give yourself compassion for having to fawn to protect yourself and in the present too. If you backtrack, that's okay. It takes time!
If this is your immediate trauma response, make sure you are doing trauma-work in your therapy. For ex: EMDR, IFS, somatic approaches, or another evidence based trauma treatment.
